Bounkham Phonesavanh

The former Habersham County sheriff’s deputy responsible for the botched drug raid that nearly killed an 18-month-old toddler was indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday for providing false evidence to obtain a “no-knock” search warrant. Instead of following procedures, former deputy Nikki Autry allegedly cut corners and provided false information, which resulted in a SWAT team raiding an innocent family’s house and tossing a flashbang grenade into the face of their young child. Although the county initially refused to pay the toddler’s medical expenses, officials eventually reached a settlement with the family after evidence emerged of Autry’s lies and the SWAT team’s negligence.

On the evening of May 27, 2014, Deputy Autry, who was also an agent of the Mountain Judicial Circuit’s drug unit, presented an affidavit to Judge James Butterworth falsely swearing that a trusted informant had recently purchased methamphetamine from a residence in Cornelia, Georgia. According to the indictment, Autry had used an unofficial and unreliable informant who never actually entered the residence or purchased any drugs from anyone inside the house. Based on Autry’s false information, Judge Butterworth issued a “no-knock” search warrant for the residence and an arrest warrant for the alleged drug dealer, Wanis Thonetheva.

After catching him stealing several valuables from her, Thonetheva’s mother had kicked him out of her house months earlier. When a fire destroyed her brother’s house in Wisconsin, she invited her brother, Bounkham Phonesavanh, his wife, Alecia, and their four young children to temporarily move in with her. Six weeks later, they found a new house in Wisconsin and were planning to return home when a SWAT team raided their bedroom in the middle of the night.

Around 2 a.m. on May 28, the SWAT team broke down their door as Habersham Deputy Charles Long threw a flashbang grenade into their bedroom. The grenade landed in the crib of 18-month-old Bounkham Phonesavanh Jr., blowing a hole through his chest and leaving third-degree burns along his face and torso. After slamming her husband to the floor, deputies ordered Alecia to sit down and shut up as she asked to hold her screaming child.

While executing a no-knock search warrant on the wrong house, a SWAT team from the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office nearly killed a 19-month-old toddler sleeping in his crib. Scarred with multiple burns and a collapsed lung, the toddler was rushed to the hospital and placed in a medically induced coma. A grand jury declined to indict the sheriff’s deputies involved in the raid, and city officials refuse to pay his exorbitant medical bills.

After a fire destroyed their home in Wisconsin earlier this year, Bounkham Phonesavanh, his wife Alecia, and their four young children temporarily moved in with Bounkham’s sister in Cornelia, Georgia. Two months later, they found a new house in Wisconsin and were planning to return home when a SWAT team raided their bedroom in the middle of the night.

Around 2am on May 28, the SWAT team broke down their door as Habersham Deputy Charles Long threw a flashbang grenade into their bedroom. The grenade landed in the crib of 19-month-old Bounkham Phonesavanh, Jr., blowing a hole through his chest and leaving third-degree burns along his face and torso. After slamming her husband to the floor, deputies ordered Alecia to sit down and shut up as she asked to hold her screaming child.

Instead of allowing Alecia to see her wounded son, Habersham Deputy Jason Stribling picked up the toddler, left the room, and waited outside for an ambulance. As the deputies detained the family and searched the house for drugs, Alecia and her husband discovered a pool of blood and burn marks in the crib. Their son’s pillow had been blown apart.

With the aggressive militarization of America’s police forces, innocent bystanders and family members often enter the crosshairs. For decades, federal programs have devised incentives for state and local police to utilize unnecessarily hostile weapons and battlefield tactics against civilians. Operating with a glaring lack of transparency and almost no public oversight, militarized police forces rarely find themselves accountable for their actions.

In a recent ACLU report titled War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, the Senior Counsel with the ACLU’s Center for Justice, Kara Dansky wrote, “The ACLU found through the course of this investigation that the excessive militarism in policing, particularly through the use of paramilitary policing teams, escalates the risk of violence, threatens individual liberties, and unfairly impacts people of color.”

After filing public records requests with more than 255 law enforcement agencies, 114 of the agencies denied the ACLU’s request. While investigating excessive weapon stockpiles and police militarization, the ACLU found a disturbing trend in Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams being used beyond their original mandate. Previously, SWAT teams had only been deployed to handle hostage, sniper, or terrorist threats. Now, SWAT teams conduct drug busts, disperse protesters, and execute “no knock” search warrants in residential neighborhoods.